This book consists of 17 papers on the contributions of John Holland by a distinguished group of scholars from a wide range of fields, including the Nobel laureates Kenneth Arrow and Herbert Simon, and also Douglas Hofstadter, Brian Arthur, Robert Axelrod, and Melanie Mitchell. Holland is the father of genetic algorithms, the pioneering worker exploring "emergence," and one of the leaders of the sciences of complexity. Holland's work is especially important for economics and evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence and machine learning, artificial life, and cognitive science.

This book is a collection of essays exploring adaptive systems from many perspectives, ranging from computational applications to models of adaptation in living and social systems. The essays on computation discuss history, theory, applications, and possible threats of adaptive and evolving
computations systems. The modeling chapters cover topics such as evolution in microbial populations, the evolution of cooperation, and how ideas about evolution relate to economics.
The title Perspectives on Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems honors John Holland, whose 1975 Book, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems has become a classic text for many disciplines in which adaptation play a central role. The essays brought together here were originally written
to honor John Holland, and span most of the different areas touched by his wide-ranging and influential research career. The authors include some of the most prominent scientists in the fields of artificial intelligence evolutionary computation, and complex adaptive systems. Taken together, these
essays present a broad modern picture of current research on adaptation as it relates to computers, living systems, society, and their complex interactions.